


Teacups

by wordbending



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-12
Updated: 2017-02-12
Packaged: 2018-09-23 19:44:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9673277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordbending/pseuds/wordbending
Summary: Taako should have known they’d come for him. He hadn’t disguised himself. There were witnesses. He’dassassinatedsomebody. He shouldn’t have expected his luck would last even as long as it did.Now all he can do is run. Run as far as he can and not look back – not for anyone.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Any Lighter For It](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9479441) by [goodnicepeople](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnicepeople/pseuds/goodnicepeople). 



> A what-if sequel to [Any Lighter For It](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9479441) \- you should read that first!

"I killed someone," says Taako one night, as he lays in Kravitz' lap and stares out into the starry night sky. Around them, crickets would have been chirping, if Taako hadn't cast a silencing spell on them a half-hour ago.

"Yes, I know," Kravitz replies nonchalantly from above him. "I _am_ a personification of death."

"Are you? I mean, yeah, you turn your face into a skull, and that's cool and all, but we don't really address that part of your character very often these days."

"You're changing the subject." Kravitz pets his long fingers through Taako's very long, very unruly hair. "You killed someone _recently._ Someone _specifically."_

_"_ Not even with magic. With a dagger. I _watched_ him die. And I still feel..." He reaches a hand into the air, grasps at nothing. "As if I shouldn't be bothered by it. Hell, I should be _happy.”_

"And you’re not.”

"Wouldn't be talking about it if I was, amigo." Taako sighs. “I can’t stop thinking... it was all for him, wasn’t it? And he doesn’t even know about it. He _can’t_ know about it.”

“I wish there was something more I could do for you, Taako.” Kravitz pauses, his fingers stopping. "But I'm not very good at... comforting people. To be honest with you, it's not really my area."

Taako sighs, blowing a loose strand of brown hair out of the way of his eyes.

"I know, Krav."

"Taako," Kravitz says, leaning forward until Taako would have been able to feel his breath on his face, if Kravitz had any need to breathe. Then he leans forward a little more, pressing a kiss against Taako's forehead - it's cold and clammy and lifeless, but it brings a smile to Taako's face. "Is there anything I _can_ do for you?"

Taako takes a hand and places it against Kravitz' equally cold and lifeless cheek - he can almost feel the slight warmth as Kravitz blushes.

"You're fine, babe."

* * *

It's only a few days later when, watching from the front window of their home, Taako sees the soldiers coming. Taako counts six of them, which makes him feel a little smug, even if they couldn't possibly know how strong he _really_ is.  


Immediately, he knows which of the two possible reasons they've come.

The first was so long ago at this point that he had almost stopped believing that anyone still cared enough to try and find him for it. But the second... he had realized it almost as soon as the adrenaline had worn off. He hadn't disguised himself from Callen's guards. There were witnesses. He'd _assassinated_ somebody.

Of course they'd come. He shouldn't have hoped his luck would last even as long as it did.

"Well, fuck," he says, leaning on his Umbra Staff.

Kravitz is already there before Taako can even call for him, as if he'd popped into existence right next to him. His scythe is in his hands.

"Oh, put that away," Taako says, and the scythe vanishes.

"But I thought..." Kravitz shakes his head, his long braids swaying. "Taako, what's going on?"

Taako motions with his head towards the six guards approaching their home. Without taking his eyes off Kravitz, he leans his head back to expose his neck, puts his finger up against it, and with a _kkkkkk,_ makes a slicing motion across it.

Kravitz blinks. "I don't understand."

"You know that teensy-weensy thing about how I, maybe, you know, killed somebody?" Taako says, tilting his head to one side and shrugging. "Well, might have screwed myself over on that one, a little bit."

Kravitz' eyes don't narrow - they disappear, replaced by empty sockets. The scythe returns to Kravitz' hands.

"Put that away!" Taako yelps, throwing his hands up. "God! We're not gonna fight them!"

Kravitz, even without skin or muscle, even with ominous dark clouds starting to form around his body, still manages to look tense, his shoulder bones hunched. He stares askance at Taako, looking as wary as a skull can possibly look, and Taako replies by grabbing his husband's bony hands in his own and looking Kravitz straight in the eye sockets.

"I'm going to run."

The dark clouds around Kravitz become sharper, more distinct, taking the shape of robes. "No. You're not."

"Yes! I am! I just said I was!"

There's a sharp knock on their front door, the door that Magnus had built for them, had fixed for them so many times over the past few years.

"Taako Taaco?" says a woman's voice from the other side, light and casual.

Taako tries to glare a no-more-arguing-about-this glare at Kravitz, but something gets mixed up on the way. Instead, his eyes soft rather than hard, his mouth half-open instead of frowning, he looks at Kravitz with all of the ten thousand emotions bubbling in him - regret and panic and that unnameable feeling when you realize that all the time in the world you thought you had has just been ripped out from under you.

"If you're there, Taako, please answer," says the woman's voice. "We just need to talk."

Taako squeezes his eyes shut and takes a sharp breath.

"Give 'em a good scare for me, will you?" he says, smiling and patting Kravitz on the shoulder.

And he casts Blink on himself.

* * *

"They're coming for me."  


"You're gonna have to be _waaaay_ more specific on that one, bud."

"Oh my god, Merle, of course. It couldn't be the people who care about that _slimeball_ I _murdered_ and told you about _last week."_

"Well, did ya kill 'em?"

"Nuh-ohhhhhh? God! Why does everyone always - look, I don't need those dominoes falling on my head, alright? And, I swear, say one thing about Fantasy Domino's..."

"Wouldn't think of it. Shit, though. What ya gonna do?"

"Well, you know me. Run like hell and don't look back."

"Huh. That doesn't sound like the Taako I know, actually."

"'Taako's good out here', remember?"

"Well, I'm just sayin', the Taako _I_ know would go get some help from, you know, his pals? I mean, him and them, they've been in far worse scrapes... and, I gotta say, there's this pretty good cleric..."

"Oh, is there? I don't think we've met."

"Ha ha. But I'm bein' serious, Taako, my door's open. I know I'm always on the road these days, but..."

"Well, thanks for the offer, but it is unneeded. Unnecessary! Because I can take care of this. I've got this. You understand? I'm gonna be just fine."

"Hrmph."

"Oh, for fuck's -"

"What?"

"Someone's coming. I'll call you later."

* * *

It's late at night before Taako pulls down his hood, the non-descript brown robe he's wearing to hide his bracer billowing around him in the cold night air.  


He stands before the intricately crafted wooden front door of Magnus' home, the word "BURNSIDES" engraved in it in big block letters, and he hugs himself, shivering. He doesn't know how long he stays there, his hand hanging mutely in front of the door, before the door opens on its own.

"Taako? Taako!" Magnus' voice says, his massive silhouette nearly blocking all the light from the door. Taako stares numbly at him, attempting a smile that even he knows isn’t coming across quite right, until Magnus puts down the giant axe he's hefting over his shoulder and claps him on the back, literally single-handedly knocking the wind out of him.

Taako doesn't say anything.

"What are you doing here?" Magnus continues, somehow managing to sound both jovial and baffled at the same time as he uses his giant hand to gently push Taako in through the door. "You're gonna freeze to death! I've got a fire, I'll make you some tea..."

Taako doesn't argue - there are times he can't, with Magnus. He lets himself be led to the dining room of Magnus' relatively small, cozy home. He takes a seat at Magnus' oak table, setting his Umbra Staff at its side, and he watches as Magnus fetches a tea kettle from his kitchen, sets it over the fire, and takes a seat on the opposite side from him.

It's much warmer, Taako notes, in Magnus' house. It makes the ends of his long ears buzz.

"So... new look, huh?" Magnus says eventually, waving a hand at Taako's hair. It catches Taako off guard, and he momentarily reaches for the place where his long, long hair had once been before remembering that he'd cut it off the day before. "The color's nice!"

Taako coughs, collecting himself, before he manages to brush what's left of his hair back, shooting Magnus a cocky smirk.

"Well, you know, thought I'd try something different," he drawls. "Black is the new black, as they say."

"They do?"

"Absolutely."

"Well, what would I know?" Magnus says, shrugging his shoulders before leaning forward on the table, resting his elbows on it and crossing his fingers under his chin. Taako is sure the table would buckle if it wasn't Magnus' craftmanship that made it - it reminds him of that old adage about a god building a rock that even he can't lift, or something to that effect. "But you still haven't said why you're here."

Taako goes quiet again, feeling a lump in his throat. The last time they had talked like this, he'd been high on adrenaline and anxiety and other emotions he couldn't place or even understand, and he hadn't made much sense even by the standards of how much he could have made sense in the circumstances.

Now what is he supposed to say? Now how is he supposed to say it?

"Taako, are you... alright?" says Magnus, his brow creasing in obvious concern. It doesn't make Taako feel any better. "You've been acting all kinds of weird. It's... look, I don't say this lightly, but it really _is_ scaring me."

Taako stares at him and realizes he can’t tell him, even if he wanted to. He just can't. Not when Magnus is looking like that. He'd rather just leave, just pretend nothing is wrong, so that at least their friendship doesn't end with him trying yet again to explain that he'd murdered someone who was, to them both, a total stranger.

"My goodness, I'm fine, Mag," he says instead, raising his eyebrows just so. "Can't I just dye my hair and pay you a visit without you getting your boxer shorts in a twist? Hmm?"

"Actually, these days, I..."

"Do _not_ finish that sentence."

"Anyway, that's not the point, Taako!" Magnus says more firmly, leaning forward. Taako backs away, blinking at the sudden closeness. "I mean, I don't see you or Kravitz for weeks, Merle won't tell me a damn thing, and then you show up here by yourself? Twice? And last time, you were all..."

Magnus lets out a deep sigh and slumps back into his chair. He seems almost... defeated, Taako thinks, the way he droops like that, like all the fight's been taken out of him.

"It's weird, OK? You're acting weird," Magnus says. "I wish you'd just tell me what's going on."

"I... I can't," Taako says, without thinking, and he immediately regrets it when Magnus' eyes widen, when he sits up in his chair like he's struggling to make sure he'd heard correctly.

The tea kettle picks that moment to start whistling. Magnus only continues to stare straight ahead at Taako, who looks away, absentmindedly biting his lip.

"Are you in trouble?" Magnus says. It's firm and decisive - not really a question at all. "Taako, please. I want to help."

Taako isn't sure whether to nod or shake his head, but he settles on shaking it. Magnus stands up with an unreadable expression, the chair screeching against the floor as it drags behind him, and goes to tend to the tea pitcher. Taako can't tell if Magnus is relieved, angry at him, or angry at whoever he imagines has hurt him.

"You don't... I don't..." Taako says, burying his face in his hands, rubbing at his forehead, trying to focus – how to say this? How? "I _can't_ explain. I literally _can't._ "

"Try me," says Magnus, and there's a _tink_ as Taako watches him set down a steaming cup of tea, in an almost blindingly white cup in the shape of a duck. The edge of the cup is cracked.

Taako squeezes his eyes shut and, not at all daintily, swallows the entire cup's worth of tea in a single gulp.

"I killed Governor Callen."

For a moment, Magnus doesn't respond, and Taako doesn't know what he's more afraid of - that Magnus understood what he said, or that he didn't. He dares himself to open his eyes, but Magnus only continues to tower over him, staring down at him over the cup of tea he's holding.

"Well?" Magnus says, taking a sip. "Try me. I'm listening."

Taako comes so close to laughing that he has to swallow it back. Of course. Of course it wasn't going to be that simple. He _knew_ that, and yet...

"I killed somebody," he tries again, but Magnus has just as little of a reaction.

"We killed..." he starts to say.

"A whole ton of people, yes, I know."

"People that deserved it."

"People that deserved it, absolutely." Well, the ones that were on purpose. Taako didn’t lose any sleep over them.

"And this somebody..." Magnus says, sounding rarely cautious. "They deserved it too, right?"

"More than any of them."

Magnus leans back against the wall of the dining room. He looks ridiculous, Taako thinks, his massive frame sipping from a tiny duck-shaped cup, and in any other circumstance, he'd have made a crack about it. 'That's a cute teacup,' he'd have said, half-sarcastically, and Magnus would have only replied, in a way where he couldn't tell if he was oblivious or playing along, 'Thanks, carved it myself.'

"Then I don't see the problem."

Taako taps his long fingers against the table.

"I, uh, didn't do a great job, let's just say." _They're going to kill me._ "I'm kind of... under arrest?"

That makes Magnus choke, the cup rattling on its plate as he spits tea onto the floor.

"So you _are_ in trouble," he says, wiping his mouth. Before Taako can say a word, Magnus sets his cup on the table, grabs Railsplitter, and stomps over to his front window. He looks out of it, peering with his hand over his eyes, as if he's as much expecting a battalion of soldiers to be just outside his front door as Taako himself is.

"Mags! Magnus!" Taako says desperately, standing to his feet. "It's fine! I've got this!"

"It's _fine?_ You just told me you're under arrest! I can't just..."

"And I've got it taken care of! Fuck! I know what I'm doing!"

"Do you?" Magnus snaps, but there's no bite in it. His expression is soft when he walks back over to the table and sits roughly down in his chair, Railsplitter still in his hand.

"Yes,” Taako says, rubbing at his arm.

Magnus pinches the bridge of his nose, then looks at Taako firmly. "Alright. Then what's the plan? I want in."

"Oh, you'll like it," he says, taking his seat back at the table and casually splaying across the chair. "Me and Kravitz, we're uh, going to take a little vacation, you know, over to the Underdark? Cast some Disguise Self, burn some spell slots on that baby, Kravitz can take any form he wants, it'll be easy-peasy."

He doesn't say _I'd never go back to the Underdark in my life, Kravitz isn't coming with me, and I'll never see you again._

"Kravitz isn't here," Magnus says, crossing his arms. "And I told you, I want in."

"What? Why?" Taako says. "And Kravitz is in that little bed and breakfast down the hill, you know the one. He's fine."

Magnus quirks a thick eyebrow. "You mean the Turquoise Tortoise? Funny, because that place has been closed for weeks. Owner has dysentery."

Taako swallows. _Shit._ So to speak.

"And protection. That's why." Magnus reaches out both hands across the table, setting them outstretched in front of Taako, and Taako instantly understands what it means - _take them. I'm here._ It's a very Magnus kind of gesture. "If you're running away, Taako..."

It isn't a Taako gesture, so Taako leans back from Magnus' hands and, keeping his own firmly at his side, rolls his eyes. "Pfft. I'm not... running away. Don't be ridiculous. I told you, it's just a little vacation. That's all!"

"Well, if you were running away..." Magnus says slowly, not moving his hands away. "You and Kravitz could stay with me. I've got room."

Taako blinks. He reaches back out for the tea cup still on the table before remembering he'd already emptied it.

It's a tempting option, asylum. All he'd have to do is stay with Magnus for a year, maybe a few, until this blows over. Eventually, the new government that sprung up to replace Callen might forget the scumbag ever existed, and certainly they'd forget he ever had either. Hell, they might even be _glad_ Callen met an untimely death in some inn somewhere.

And he'd get Kravitz back.

He looks at Magnus, who just smiles at him. There's something in that smile, something as warm and welcoming as Magnus' home itself, as his hand-crafted furniture. It seems to say, as much as his still outstretched hands, _I'd give up anything for you without a second thought._

And Taako knows, he knows all too well, he would.

And that's why he can't do it.

"Puh-lease," he says, with a laugh, raising his hand to his mouth. "Me and Kravitz, we have a nice thing going, you know? We know how to have a good time. But you? You'd be all 'I roll for Perception to look for threats, I use my Protection action to shield Taako' every two seconds. You'd harsh our buzz, my man."

"When do I _ever_ do Perception checks?"

"I don't know, sometimes?" Taako shrugs. "And besides, I'm not running away."

Magnus narrows his eyes, looking genuinely annoyed, which isn't rare for him, but is rarer when directed Taako's direction. Taako looks away – it unnerves him.

"Look, Taako," he says. "You're your own... elf. Your choices are your own. You've earned that."

"Well, I like the sound of this so far."

"But I just don't want you... running and hiding, skipping from town to town, trying to make ends meet. You have a _good life,_ Taako. You've got friends, a home, a husband. What could be worth giving all that up?"

And Magnus comes to a stop, looking suddenly very distant. His eyes narrow, not at Taako but past him, as if he's trying to concentrate on something invisible.

"What _did_ make you want to give all that up?"

"I'm sorry?"

Magnus looks down at the table, his furrowed brow suggesting he's just as confused as Taako is.

"This person you killed..." he says, slowly, as if processing each word one at a time. "I'm sure they were a bad dude, but... killing somebody? By yourself? Taking a risk like that? It's not... like you."

And he looks directly at Taako.

"Why?" Magnus says.

Taako swallows. He feels suddenly far away from himself, like he's looking down at what's happening from above.

"I promised you," he says, as much to himself as anything.

With those words, something changes in Magnus' face. His jaw goes slack, but his pupils dilate, like he’s struggling to concentrate on two things at once.

"What?"

Taako leaps to his feet, his empty tea cup rattling as the table moves. "I have to go."

Magnus takes a moment before he stands, which Taako only knows he's done because he hears the sound of him knocking his chair to the floor. But it's long enough of a moment for Taako to pick up his Umbra Staff and open the front door, a blast of chilly air hitting him as it swings open. The fireplace darkens, and the light from Magnus' house darkens with it.

"Taako, wait!" he says to Taako's back, and for a moment, Taako turns his head back to look at him. The chair has fallen to the ground by Magnus' feet and Magnus' own cup is overturned, spilling tea across the table and onto the floor. But Magnus himself seems frozen, one arm outstretched towards him, his face pale even in the now dimly lit room.

"Don't follow me," Taako says.

And, with that, he turns around and disappears into the dark.

* * *

The next day, Taako sets a small blue stone on the trunk of what had been a tree, before Taako had cast Disentegrate to obliterate most of it.  


He stares at it. He can barely bring himself to lift the Umbra Staff, to aim the point of it down at the tiny little rock in front of him.

He doesn't have anything to say, like he normally always seems to when he's using magic to destroy things, when he fires off a Scorching Ray into it. The little blue stone heats up, turning redder and redder, brighter and brighter, until smoke clouds start pouring out of it.

Taako pops opens the staff and ducks down behind it just as the stone finally explodes, shattering into thousands of pieces of shrapnel which bounce off the umbrella's surface and the ground and the trees, and then he closes the staff again and walks away as if he hadn't done anything at all.

He hadn't even said goodbye to Merle.

* * *

He's staying in his third inn, in Crimmor, part of the extremely hefty payment from the Bureau of Balance burning a hole in the pocket of yet another new robe, when he realizes he doesn't really _have_ a plan.  


It's his fifth inn, in Hillsfar, before he's able to admit to himself that maybe Magnus was right.

He's in the most expensive available bed of the most expensive available room of Goldcliff, his eighth inn, not sleeping at all, when he hears the voice calling his name.

"T a a k o," it says, in an deep voice, an unplaceable accent. "T a a k o."

He opens his eyes. Staring straight down at him is the empty eye sockets of a skeleton, its non-existent face covered by a formless black hood, a scythe in its hands.

"Oh my fucking lord," Taako says, slapping his hands over his face.

Instantly, the skeletal face is gone, a handsome, gaunt, dark face replacing it, the black robes fading away into dark clouds. Kravitz sits at the end of the almost absurdly fancy white lace bedspread, next to Taako's legs.

Taako doesn't get up.

"You were surprisingly hard to find, Taako," says Kravitz, smiling at him.

"Yes, that's the point," interrupts Taako, his voice muffled by his hands.

"I have a lot of powers at my disposal and I still had to call in a favor with the Raven Queen to track you down," Kravitz continues, as if Taako hadn't spoken. "And favors, ah, don't come easily with her, let's say."

"Well, sorry to say," Taako says, finally climbing onto his knees just so he can shoot a glare at Kravitz. "But you wasted! Your! Time! Because I am _not_ happy to see you!"  


Kravitz brings a hand to his chest, looking shocked, and somewhere in Taako's heart, he knows he can't really stay angry at his undead husband.

"OK, that was... a tiny little lie," he says, raising his hand and making a tiny, tiny space between his thumb and forefinger. And then he launches himself at Kravitz, without as much as giving him a warning, and wraps his arms around his thin, frail shoulders.

"You've missed me, haven't you?" says Kravitz, patting his shoulder.

"Psshh," Taako says, squeezing him tighter. He's not much of a huggy-feely kind of elf, not normally, not even with Kravitz, but he's willing to make an exception, just this once. "Like you even have to ask."

"Come back home, Taako."

Taako swallows. Without breaking the hug, he shakes his head. "I can't."

"Why not?"

This time, Taako does break the hug. He doesn't want to, not now, not ever, but he has things he knows he has to say, and it's easier to look Kravitz firmly in the eyes when he says them.

"Go home, Krav."

Kravitz frowns. "You know I won't do that. I can't leave -"

"Don't. Don't do this," he says, squeezing his fists in Kravitz' vest. "Just go home. You don't belong here."

"Where else could I possibly belong?"

"Yes, very romantic. You're a real charmer." Even to Taako's own ears, his sarcasm sounds empty. "You don't belong _here._ Running along all higgledy-piggledy, never staying in one place, hiding from the law. I _made_ my choices, OK?" He points to himself, for emphasis. "They're _my_ choices. Not _yours._ Mine."

In reply, Kravitz takes both of Taako's hands in his own and looks Taako in the eyes.

"But you don't have to do all that. You can come home, with me - I'd protect you."

Taako thinks of Magnus' face, the last time he saw it, pale and shocked, silhouetted by his fireplace.

"Not an option," he says quietly.

"Then I'll run away with you. I don't care if we're... what do they say... 'on the lamb,' Taako. I don't care how long we have to hide together. I love you, Taako. That's what love _is._ "

Taako can't even bring himself to roll his eyes. He settles for a resigned sigh.

"Why do you have to make this so difficult?"

Instantly, a smile breaks across Kravitz' face _._

_God,_ Taako thinks. _He’s like a puppy._

"So it's alright then, if I stay with you?"

"As if I could ever say no to that pretty face," Taako replies, pinching Kravitz' cheek.

* * *

It becomes surprisingly easy for them to settle into a routine. They travel all across Faerun, never staying in one place for more than a few weeks, always rotating disguises - an old tourist couple here, two talent agents there, out-of-town adventurers somewhere else. They have more money than they could possibly know what to do with, but they stay light, buying only what they need and no more.  


Like that, the weeks become months, and the months become what Taako guesses is a year. It’s a short time for an elf, but it doesn't feel that way to Taako. Taako never asks what Kravitz feels about it, although Kravitz assures him without prompting that he's happy as long as they're together.

For himself, though, the whole thing is almost sickly nostalgic. He'd almost forget there was even a time before this, between the first time he ran and this one, if the memories didn't spend every minute of every day pricking at the edge of his mind.

Once, near Neverwinter, he sees three dwarves. Of course, he sees dwarves all the time, but there's something about these three that sticks out in his mind. It's a mother, a young girl, and what looks like her younger brother - the brother is one of those hyper little tykes, the kind that's always getting in the way, running around underfoot.

It reminds Taako of himself at that age, what little of it he can remember, but it also inexplicably reminds Taako of somebody else. He dismisses it - just dwarves. Kind of dwarfist of him to think all dwarves happen to be related, after all.

Another time, he and Kravitz are in Bezentil, a trading settlement on the Great Road between the eastern and western halves of Faerun. There's a merchant there, in front of a rickety wooden display, selling hand-crafted furniture - tables, drawers, chairs, knick-knacks. And, for no reason he can fathom, Taako finds himself drawn to it.

He finds, among the furniture, a pair of white tea cups, shaped like ducks. On one of the cups, the edge is cracked.

He asks where they're from, where they're _really_ from. The merchant says she has no idea - all of her goods have been sold and resold, so she can't possibly keep track. But, if he'd like the cups, that one was cracked when she picked it up, so it's available for a discount.

So he buys the cups.

And once, they're in a tiny fishing town, on the edge of the Sea of Swords at the west of Faerun, when Taako sees a tall, gangly teenager. It wouldn’t be anything worth noting, not particularly, if it wasn’t for the teenager’s big, thick glasses and smart blue coat, the book tucked under their arm.

It reminds him of – what was it? - Annie, right. But, of course, it can’t actually be him – Anise is a tiny little tyke, barely up to Taako’s hip, and this kid is taller than Taako is. And what would he be doing here, in the middle of nowhere, instead of back at the Bureau’s base, tending to his studies, where he’s safe?

So Taako attempts to put the kid out of his mind.

Except he can’t, because the kid keeps inexplicably appearing. Every other town he goes to, no matter how complex his disguise is, he sees them – the glasses, the blue coat, the book. He’s buying salmon and the kid is a few shops down, buying bread. He’s holding Kravitz’ hand as they walk down a busy street and he turns around and the kid is in the crowd behind him. Once, when he orders a carriage to take them to the next town, he even sees the kid already on the same carriage, and he’s so baffled by it that he buys passage on a different one.

The kid never seems to actually look his direction, or come close enough to him for Taako to see them very well, but that only unnerves Taako more. He almost wants to confront them, and he tells Kravitz as much, but Kravitz reassures him that it’s nothing, that he detects no ill intent, that Taako’s probably just exhausted and stressed from being on the run so long. And Taako realizes he can’t really confront them anyway, because what can he say? “Hi, you remind me of a little boy detective I used to know and also stop following me immediately”?

But he swears that, on the kid’s wrist, he saw a silver bracer.

* * *

Taako's back home.  


He's sitting in front of his little glass dining table, the outdoor one by Kravitz' garden, with just the two white chairs for him and Kravitz and the big umbrella for shade. The sky is a perfect, cloudless blue, although strangely, there's no birds anywhere, or even the sound of birdsong.

Magnus is at the other side. The gray in his hair, already growing with each passing year, is even grayer, and his face is heavily wrinkled. He takes a sip of tea from a small white glass shaped like a duck.

"Why don't you trust me, Taako?" he says.

"Oh, I get it," says Taako, leaning back in his chair. "This is, like, one of those insightful kinda dreams, to teach me something about myself, right? That's cool."

"I guess so," says Magnus.

"Well, since we're laying it all on the table," Taako starts to say, but then he stops. "Wait, I can do, like, parkour and shit in this, right?"

Magnus shrugs, so Taako effortlessly flips backwards onto the top of the chair, so that he’s hanging upside-down on it, suspended by just one finger. He starts to do one-fingered push-ups, all the while staring straight ahead at Magnus.

"That's not actually parkour, you know," says Magnus.

"Hey, if I don't have to do Acrobatics rolls, it's all the same to me, my man," Taako replies, shrugging with his free arm. "So, anyway, as I was saying, it's not that I don't _trust_ you, Mags. You're a real trustworthy dude."

In an instant between push-ups, he hops from one hand to the other.

"I just don't want to see you hurt."

Magnus scratches his dark black sideburns, his face as free of wrinkles as the day they met. "I thought _I_ was the protection fighter."

"Oh ho ho, no, no, not physically. No. The other kind."

"And, what, you didn't think running away would... hurt my feelings?"

"Hey, out of sight, out of mind, my dude," Taako shrugs again, this time with both arms.

"Yeah, I can see that. Good job."

"I never said it _worked."_

"It's not too late to come home, you know," says Magnus. His face seems formless now, blurry, like a smear on a painting, but he lifts the cup of tea to a non-existent mouth anyway.

"Um," says Taako. "I think it is? I've spent lord knows how long out here, it's a little past time to be all whoopsy-doopsy, I'd like a do-over now, if you’d please."

He grabs the other cup from the table and, still upside-down, takes a sip of the tea. Dream tea doesn't taste as good as Magnus tea, he decides.

"We miss you," Magnus says. His whole body seems blurry and smeared now. Taako tries to concentrate on it, tries to recall it, and it shifts and distorts, but it doesn't take the shape of Magnus again.

"I miss you," Magnus repeats.

And Taako is seated at the table. No one is sitting across from him, and the cups of tea lay untouched in front of him.

"I miss you too," he says, to nobody.

* * *

"Taako," says Kravitz' voice. "Stay calm, but... someone’s here."  


Taako’s eyes shoot open and he jolts up in bed, looking around the dimly lit inn room, dark except for the orange light streaming from the windows. He looks towards the door and sees, in the light coming from underneath it, a jumble of silhouettes – three in all, he thinks, one very small and one very large.

He makes a bolt for the window. Kravitz grabs him by the seat of the pajamas before he can even get off the bed.

"Um, hello?” Taako says, annoyed. “I’m not going to stick around and get executed over here.”

“Wait,” Kravitz replies. “I don’t think these are soldiers.”

“Is that just a guess? Because I love you and all, but I’m not dying based on a guess.”

Before Kravitz can answer, someone knocks at the inn room door – their knock is politely gentle but still heavy enough to shake the door, suggesting either a very large person or someone in armor.

"Just a minute!" Taako shouts, in a low voice that’s supposed to be a disguise but only makes himself wince. He snatches his Umbra Staff from where it’s resting against the bedside drawer and gives Kravitz, who remains sitting on the bed, a ‘We doing this or what?’ look.

Kravitz appears behind him and presses a cold hand to Taako’s shoulder. Taako swallows, giving himself a mental pep talk – whatever’s on the other side, he thinks, he’s faced worse.

"Who is it?" he says, readying the incantation for Ice Storm. It’s not exactly a subtle spell, but if it’s one against three like he thinks, then...

"Oh, nobody, really," says a deep, friendly, achingly familiar voice.

Taako all but throws open the door.

Magnus raises a hand as soon as Taako makes eye contact, waving awkwardly. He looks as if the age he sacrificed has finally caught up with him completely – not just in the wrinkles, but in the gray in his hair, his sideburns, which has progressed from “silver fox” to nothing less than “retired adventurer grandpa.”

Next to him is a tall, though still short next to Magnus, gangly teenage boy. The teenager has big, thick glasses and a smart blue coat, and it takes Taako a moment to recognize him as the teenager he kept seeing all around Faerun and yet another to realize why he’s here too. It’s the smile, not the bracer on his wrist, that gives him away – he still smiles at Taako with all the sincerity and earnestness of a child, even one as smart as Angus is.

And next to him is Merle, who looks, as far as Taako can tell, exactly the same. Merle only smiles slightly at Taako – he’s never been the type to grin - but it’s definitely a Merle smile, the type that almost makes Taako want to believe in his homespun version of spiritual wisdom. Almost.

Taako stares at them.

"Holy shit," he says, under his breath. Before he can say another word, he suddenly finds himself being hugged from three directions – first by Angus, then by Merle, and then by Magnus, who effortlessly lifts all three of them into the air. Everyone starts speaking at once.

"It's so good to see you, sir!"

"Ain't been the same without ya, pal."

"Missed you, buddy."

“Put me down! Put me down!” Taako squeals, and Magnus does, gently. Taako brushes off his pajamas and takes a quick glance backwards to see where Kravitz has gone. He sees him leaning against a wall in the room, and when they make eye contact, Kravitz nods at him and smiles.

Taako scoffs and turns back to his visitors.

“What the fuck is wrong with all of you?!”

All three of them stare back blankly.

“I’m on the run! The lamb! I’m being chased by the fantasy fuzz! The pretend police! What part of ‘hiding’ don’t you understand? Are you _trying_ to get me killed?”

Angus looks horrified. Magnus and Merle look at each other and laugh.

“Yep, definitely him,” says Merle, wiping a tear from his eye. Taako ignores him.

“It’s bad enough that _Kravitz_ shows up here uninvited - sorry, Krav, honey, just making a point here - but you two chuckleheads? You might as well have put a sign on my back that says ‘Howdy, I’m Taako, stick my head under the guillotine ASAP!’”

Magnus steps closer, raising his palms.

“Now, hold on...”

“Absolutely not!”

“Taako,” Magnus says, but he’s still smiling. “You’re fine. You’re not gonna be arrested.”

Angus leans around Magnus’ shoulder, adjusting his glasses. “That’s why I’ve been keeping an eye on you to make sure you’re OK! You’re really good at hiding from the law, but not too good for me!”

“The little bastard,” says Merle, clapping Angus on the back and knocking his glasses loose again, “has been tracking you for _months_ while we’ve dealt with all this red tape shit.”

“Hold on, hold on,” says Taako, rubbing his forehead. “What red tape shit?”

"Well, the Bureau went and erased everyone's memories," Merle says, before glancing at Magnus, "of you-know-who. Soooo, technically speaking..."

"You didn't do anything wrong," Magnus adds.

"Not that ya ever did,” Merle agrees. “I told ‘em what happened, ya know, after ya never returned my calls. They figured it was the least they owed ya after all that mess.”

Taako pauses to process what he’s just heard.

“Whoops,” he says quietly, scratching his cheek. “Probably should’ve done that first, huh.”

He steps forward, grinning from ear-to-ear, and claps Merle and Magnus on the shoulders.

"Well!" he says cheerfully. "That was a great trip and all, but let's get this show back on the road - I've got a husband to make out with."

"Oh, gross," says Magnus, grinning back. Taako turns back to Kravitz and sees him blushing, so he shoots him a wink for good measure.

"Avi's not too far from here, so we can get you back home in a jiffy!" says Angus, running ahead down the hallway. "Come on!"

“Not in my PJs, little man!” Taako shouts at him. “Give me a minute!”

* * *

Once Taako is home, really home, it's hours before Taako can even think of having anyone leave again. As exhausted and overwhelmed as Taako feels, as jarring as being back in his home is, as much as he really would like to just make out with Kravitz until the sun sets, he simply can't bring himself to shoo them away. He has so much catching up to do.  


Angus spends hours just showing him spells both new and old – how good he’s gotten at Disguise Self (not to mention his impressive, surprisingly entertaining Director impression), how Merle has taught him Zone of Truth, how much of a crack shot he is with Scorching Ray. He goes on and on until he runs out of spell slots, and energy, and falls asleep on Taako’s couch.

All Taako can think the entire time is about how tall he’s gotten in such a short amount of time.

Merle has stories. So many stories, ever since he became a traveling evangelist for Pan. He tells him about the time he almost ended up in a cult of Beholder worshippers (“for a buncha blind people, they play a mean game of Pin The Tail On The Wyrm”). Or the time he summoned Della Reese to protect a town from bandits and the town tried to worship her instead (“she was flattered”). Or the time he ran into some of his old buddies who worshipped Marthammor Duin (“it was kinda awkward, but hey, I got some great conversions out of it.”)

And of course, there's Magnus. Eventually, once Angus has fallen asleep and Merle has went off for a probably still awkward catching up with Kravitz, Taako asks Magnus for a private moment. He takes him out to the table by Kravitz' garden, the glass one with just the two chairs. It's sunset by then, but there's still the sound of late afternoon birdsong.

"I've got something of yours," he says, reaching into his own personal, monogrammed Bag of Holding. He takes out two white cups, little ones shaped like ducks, and gently sets them down on the table, in front of Magnus.

Magnus, mouth agape, picks them both up off the table like they're going to vanish if he doesn't. He holds them up in front of his eyes, turning them this way and that.

"Whoa, never thought I'd see these again!" he says, grinning. "Where'd you get 'em?"

"You know, funny thing," replies Taako, picking at his teeth with a fingernail, "Already can't remember."

"They're some of my favorite ducks," Magnus says proudly, before setting them back on the table. "Carved them out of bone myself, let's see... about three years ago, I think. And, trust me, you have no idea how hard it is to carve tea cups out of _actual_ bones, instead of just using bone ash.”

He pokes at one of the duck's finely-carved tail feathers, shockingly white, detailed in a way that Taako can only imagines must have been painstaking, and frowns.

"That's why I never wanted to sell them," he says. "But, after you disappeared..."

Taako watches Magnus shut his eyes tightly, take a deep breath, exhale. He wants to say something to him - "I'm sorry," "I should have listened to you," even "I was stupid." But, as always, he can't bring himself to. There's still that strange distance between him and Magnus, the same distance he puts between him and everyone else, even when he can't think of anyone but Kravitz he'd consider himself closer to.

"Keep 'em," Magnus says, pushing the cups across the table. He's smiling, a wide, sincere-looking smile.

"I couldn't," Taako says immediately.

"Nah, I mean it," Magnus insists. "They're yours. I want you to have 'em. Think of them as, you know, a gift. Kinda."

Taako stares at them. They're beautiful, even if they're a little too twee for his tastes, and it's hardly as if he can really say no - he purchased them, after all, so technically, Magnus is only asking him to keep what's already his.

"But you have to promise me one thing," Magnus says, slamming a massive elbow down on the table before Taako can agree or not. The tea cups bounce from the impact.

"Er," Taako says, raising one finger and staring warily at Magnus' outstretched hand. "What's that?"

"You never disappear on me again."

Taako laughs. He takes one gloved hand and puts it into Magnus' much, much larger one.

"Now that's a deal."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my friend [Adrienne](http://insertdisc5.tumblr.com/) for betaing this fic for me!


End file.
